IBM opens downtown offices

BATON ROUGE - After a long wait and plenty of time in temporary digs, the offices of IBM finally opened at their new location on North Street in Downtown Baton Rouge Friday.

The project has been two years in the making. It sounds like a long time, but everything went just as planned and the facilities are opening a month ahead of schedule.

The company is sharing a building with the 525 Lafayette apartments, which are still being worked on. Construction is set to be complete on the apartments at the beginning of this coming September.

IBM has already hired more than 200 employees and plans to hire a total of 800 to fully flesh out the staff that now calls the downtown area home.

"Well it brings a huge technology presence that wasn't here before. So, hopefully it will be an impetus for a lot more growth and technology here, and other companies to come here and share what's kind of a magical city. Kind of a hidden little gem on the Mississippi river," said Sean Marshall, an IBM employee.

IBM specializes in software maintenance and development with an increased focus in recent years on conceptualizing new products that take advantage of the promise of "big data".